The breakthrough film for Terence Fisher("The
Mummy"/"The Gorgon"/"The Brides of Dracula"), which
marked the start of
Hammer's successful commercial run on horror pics. The
studio
specialized in
redoing popular period horror films in color and with
more graphic
violence and sex. If compared to the James Whale
"Frankenstein"(1931),
where
Boris
Karloff played the monster, this pic doesn't fair that
well. In this
pic the self-absorbed craven arrogant scientist, Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter
Cushing), is the
monster
and the monster he creates, played by Christopher Lee (with a
lousy rag-tag
make-up job and not much of a personality, and veering
between being
pathetic and menacing), is only the secondary
monster.
This film
revitalized the
British film industry, establishing Hammer Studios as
an
internationally renown production company. But I
didn't find it
impressive, in fact I found the pic tacky, stiff and
not that
involving. The screenplay by Jimmy Sangster
gets all the
diabolical drama possible out of
Mary Shelley's classic shocking novel, but not its
lyrical value.

It opens with Baron Victor
Frankenstein (Peter
Cushing) in a country Swiss jail, charged with murder
and set to be
guillotined, who gets his wish to see a priest, not
for salvation of
his soul but to tell him his crazy creation story and
claim the monster
is the killer and not him so he can avoid facing
execution. The Baron
appears to be a raving lunatic, because there's no
evidence that a
monster exists.

We then follow through
flashbacks the Baron's story, starting with his youth
as an orphan,
living with his aunt (Noel
Hood) and
cousin Elizabeth (Hazel Court). A new tutor, Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), was hired
to help him
discover the keys to life and the upstairs portion of
his mansion was
set up as an experimental laboratory. Soon the pupil
surpasses in
knowledge his tutor, who becomes his assistant. When a
dead puppy was
revived, the Baron believes he's onto something and
becomes obsessed
with creating the perfect specimen and showing up the
smug scientific
community with his superior knowledge. Though a
cultured and brilliant
man, the Baron's ego is unchecked and he becomes
ruthless in getting
only what he wants no matter the inhumane cost.

The Baron procures the
body
of a hanged highwayman and to get the brain he wants,
the Baron pushes
a genius mathematician (Paul
Hardtmuth) over
his castle's
railing. He uses extortion to get Paul's reluctant
help. The
lower-class maid (Valerie Gaunt) is used as a sex
object. The Baron
only laughs at her when she says he promised her
marriage. When she
threatens to go to the authorities to report his
unauthorized
experiment, the aristocrat locks her in the lab and
allows the monster
to rip her apart.

The Baron plans to
marry his
cousin Elizabeth,
whom he
accidentally shoots when the monster escapes from the
lab. In the end, no
one else but Paul has seen the monster (who is brought
back from the
dead and escapes, but is killed when catching on fire
from an oil lamp
and falling through the skylight into an acid bath).
When Paul visits
the jail, he refuses to acknowledge the presence of a
monster. The
Baron will go to his death blaming Paul for ruining
his creation by
shooting the monster in the eye and thereby ruining
his perfect brain.
The Baron will not recognize that he has become a
monster, not even
caring that his creation killed an innocent blind
grandfather and the
others.

The Baron marries the
beautiful Elizabeth and has a life filled with
creature comforts, but
refuses to acknowledge his life is a failure--even in
the last shot
when Paul doesn't corroborate his story and he's being
led by the
jailers to the guillotine.

It was made on a low
budget
of $250,000 and took in over $7 million in the
international market.
The lurid film set the regrettable trend for such
cheesy, nasty and
deplorable horror pics; though one must admit these
Hammer pics all had
style.